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My interest in the Afrikaans language started in about 1970 when I first returned from a three-year tour of duty with NATO in The Netherlands. My exposure to Nederlandse and Maestreech lead me to seek further exposure to the lowlands languages via Short Wave Listening (SWL).
I started listening to Radio Nederlands whenever I could, though most of the broadcasts I could receive in Utah were in English. As I tuned the bands, I started hearing something fairly regularly which sounded a lot like Nederlandse but with a lot of words that were "mispronounced" and a lot of new words! That was Radio South Africa (RSA) broadcasting in Afrikaans.
I became an avid listener and sent for materials written in Afrikaans, since I am much more a visual learner. I gradually made my way through the Afrikaans text--sometimes pronouncing a word whose spelling I didn't recognize only to find an old friend in a Dutch word!
This interest in Afrikaans lead to an interest in the country, South Africa. It was not until the early 1990, however that I finally took the opportunity to learn more about the history of the country and the language. Finally I was able to take trips to South Africa and hear and see Afrikaans first hand.
By putting this page here, I am trying to help, in some small way, to keep Afrikaans alive. It is a spoken and literary language that deserves to remain a world language. I have put a number of worthwhile references to the language from the Net here so that each of you can at least see the language.
Article on Creole aspects of Afrikaans
Yamada Languages: Afrikaans WWW
Department of Afrikaans-Univ. of Stellenbosch
Online English to Afrikaans Dictionary
